Surround Sound Variations

Surround support is currently available for HDMI PCM audio streams only, suitable for most Blu-ray and DVD players, some Media Streamers and some Set Top Boxes, although all of these sources downgrade higher precision audio to 48k/16 bit. Currently there is no support for ARC/SPDIF/TOS surround streams, required for playback of surround from internal TV sources, e.g. Netflix. Other sources, such as Chromecast, require the stream decoding to be performed by a secondary AV receiver, e.g. an Oppo, added into the HDMI chain. These configurations require specialist knowledge to configure and control, can cause additional audio delays and are reliant on 3rd party devices. Also, currently, a full surround system requires a full Exakt configuration for each of the additional channels.

Original Surround capability

Up to Davaar 37 firmware, (May 2016), and Majik/Akurate/Klimax products with HDMI-1 boards.

The HDMI audio could be split to allow the Front Left/Right to play on the Linn DSM and remaining channels fed to the Linn DSM HDMI OUT to a surround processor to deal with the remaining channel.

Details of this operation can be found Surround options up to Davaar 37 & Surround with an additional Processor

Software controlled Surround capability

From Davaar 55 (Mar 2017), and Majik/Akurate/Klimax DSM products with Exakt capability.

These products can take multi-channel PCM audio from the HDMI input. This PCM audio could then be used with the Linn DSM analogue outputs and Exakt-link connections. This now allowed the capabailty of 7.1ch Surround audio, the limitation is that the HDMI source MUST be able to feed this Surround Format.

Details of this operation can be found Surround options from Davaar 55 & Set up and adjusting